Compact Fluorescent Bulbs -- some are unreliable

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Incandesent lamps have full spectrum light. Incandescents have a very restricted range that work well for people with normal colour perception. If you're missing one of the colour receptors, that will definitely make the colour different for you compared to incandescents of the same colour temperature.

There are "full spectrum" CFLs out there, that might work better for you. They use a larger range of phosphors than the ordinary CFLs.

Hey! Thanks for that. That'll do nicely. It makes sense, and while it doesn't preclude the possibility, it's nice to know that there's a chance it's not just in my mind.

Cheers,
Marc

[Andybaby]

we began switching to CFLs as they burnt out more than 5 years ago. currently every bulb in my apartment is CFL or tube florecents (bathroom and kitchen)

only 1 bulb that I can remember has died. it was my brothers and I think he hit it.

we only bought the GE ones, not dollar store fakes.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mjh215

To elaborate that point, if the overall quality of a product is not known or is under question I don't feel that any authority would be in the right to make required usage of that product. On the overall topic I wouldn't feel mandating would be proper either but that would be an expansion of the point.

In an ideal world, with no threat of global warming, no bad manufacturers, and no resistance on the part of consumers to buy the most appropriate products, I would probably agree with your position. My position is that we are far past that point, however, and whether we like it or not, these are the realities we have to deal with. I don't like being told what to buy or not buy either, but I understand the need to do so, and as someone who cares about my country and my planet, am willing to forego the "freedom" to buy cheap, wasteful products, for all of our sakes.

That's why our best duty is to follow up government mandates with counter-mandates, forcing those governments to make sure the products we are being told to buy are worth buying. And since, as I said, this is not an ideal world, our second duty is to make our own efforts to make sure we buy quality products, and not have to depend on the government telling us which ones to buy.

I sympathize if your money is tight, but we're not talking about an electric car, here... even a quality CFL isn't that expensive. I could buy a good bulb with the money I'd save on a single mixed drink at a restaurant. Priorities...

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by mjh215

I don't need a lecture about the cost savings and so on differential, let's just say I am struggling right now and really cannot afford said bulbs and leave it at that, thanks.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I sympathize if your money is tight, but we're not talking about an electric car, here... even a quality CFL isn't that expensive. I could buy a good bulb with the money I'd save on a single mixed drink at a restaurant. Priorities...

You just don't have any sense of common courtesy do you Steve? I very politely asked you to leave that alone. I would think any decent individual would grasp the concept that I didn't wish to justify my financial situation or current living conditions on a public forum and further didn't want someone self righteously informing me what my priorities should be. I see I was mistaken.

As anything else I could say to you would be violating forum policies (such as where to go, or what to place in a particular orifice) I'll just walk away (a common trend for conversations with you). Take care Steve and well, take care...

-MJ

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Hmm... deja-vu...

Oh, whatever. Sorry I offended you (yet again). Catch ya next time.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

This thread has prompted me to remember the last time I replaced a light bulb in my house. I started buying CFLs years ago, when they first started to come out, to replace one fixture at a time, or to have when an I-bulb (I'm just gonna start saying I-bulb... easier to type than incandescent) burned out. Right now, there are very few I-bulbs left in my house.

And you know what? It's been quite a while since I bought a bulb. Over a year, at least.

I used to buy about 4 I-bulbs a year to replace burned-out I-bulbs. (We also had I-bulbs supplied to us by local disabled veterans, which, although through our donations they were undoubtedly helping the veterans stay employed, were very poor quality, and often burned out within a year).

In the last two years, I think I've only bought 2 bulbs. And they were to replace among the last I-bulbs in the house, not any of the CFLs. So I am buying roughly 1 CFL for every 4 I-bulb I used to buy. Sure, even 1 CFL can cost the same as 3-4 I-bulbs, but... as I mentioned elsewhere... that's beer money. (And I bet you'll pay extra to avoid drinking cheap beer.)

Add to that the fact that 3-4 CFLs use the same amount of energy as 1 I-bulb, and the savings at the store, and on my E-bill, are clear.

And the reason this works is because I don't go to WallMart and buy the cheap bulbs they have on the end-caps up-front, sold by "Seelvinia (a subsidiary of Bubba Gump's Emporium in Shreveport)"... that's where you find the "unreliable" products. You go deep into the light bulb aisle, and buy bulbs from reputable names. Do a little online research... you can easily figure out whose bulbs to buy, and whose to pass on.

Bottom line: You want reliable? Be prepared to pay for it. But what the heck? It's only a light bulb.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

There are plenty of CFLs that can be used with dimmers, but they are quite a bit more expensive than the NO-dimmer-usage variety. As for "the color of fluoro lights" -- are you aware that you can buy fluorescent bulbs in a wide range of color temperatures? They range from 2700K (which matches the yellow-ness of incandescent) through 6500K (which matches the dominant colors in sunlight) and also "full spectrum" (which match the four or five dominant colors in sunlight, in about the correct proportions).

My wife and I are rather partial to the 4300K bulbs known as "cool white" in the US market. This represents a compromise between "not-too-far-from-incandescent" on the one hand, and "helps with her SAD" on the other.

In the US, I buy from 1000bulbs.com (which won't help Marc, but may be of use to the US readership). Really, there are tons of options if you look around a bit.

Xenophon

I also get mine from 1000bulbs.com but we like the "stark white". It helps with older eyes. Also I've been using them with ceiling fan fixtures with no apparent problems.

[Darqref]

I've been using CFLs for quite a while. I've found ones with a three-way switch to replace the standard bulbs in a 3-way table lamp. I've found the different temp ones, and I've found the ones for flood lights that work in our outdoor floods.

I haven't found a cfl for the following two uses:

1. my bedside touch lamp. I have a small lamp that I can touch anywhere to turn on or off - it has a three way dimmer included, that, so far at least, can only work on an i-bulb. The fixture is actually too small to try the above 3-way incandescent cfl, but in another touch-lamp, all the cfls hum and crackle, even when they are "off". This worries me, so I don't keep cfls in those lamps.

2. We want to have our outdoor floods on a timer (they are already on a light sensor, and Mom specifically doesn't want motion sensors). We'd like to use standard timer systems that we use in the rest of the house, but those timers don't work on inductive loads like cfls. The timing fixtures that do work with inductive loads are not well suited for the use we have in mind, and are much more expensive. Eventually I'll get something worked out, but eventually I'll get a new freezer too (and that's probably the larger electrical inefficiency). Btw, the timer systems would also give us a remote on/off capability, that would be neat for the outdoor floods.

I'm actually quite interested in LED-based lights, which are even more efficient, although more difficult to make very bright. I've got an LED based flashlight that is over ten years old, and I've NEVER changed the battery (I think it was rated at about 80 hours of operation per battery, and I don't think I've exceeded that yet...)

On the other hand, Mom is legally blind, although not actually totally blind, and its nice to plug in a larger cfl to replace the old 60w bulbs.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I recently ran across an article about a college that replaced a few hundred of its ceiling-mounted fluorescents with LED lights... at $75 a bulb, versus $2.50 for a standard tube fluorescent. Me, I don't know how they managed it, especially in this economic climate. But they did.

I'm eyeing LED bulbs too, but so far, I don't have the money to replace the lights in my house with them. Hopefully they'll come down in price soon, and we'll see (!) a lot more LED lights about.

[pdurrant]

LEDs do look very attractive. 50,000 hour life, and less than half the electricity use of CFLs.

Every torch I've bought recently had had an LED. I can't see any good reason to buy anything else.

But for room lights they have some way to go yet. But if they're not widespread (& inexpensive) by 2020 (at the latest) I'll be very surprised.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I recently ran across an article about a college that replaced a few hundred of its ceiling-mounted fluorescents with LED lights... at $75 a bulb, versus $2.50 for a standard tube fluorescent. Me, I don't know how they managed it, especially in this economic climate. But they did.

I'm eyeing LED bulbs too, but so far, I don't have the money to replace the lights in my house with them. Hopefully they'll come down in price soon, and we'll see (!) a lot more LED lights about.

[mklynds]

we have mostly cfls and full size fluorescents in our house. I did look at some LED pot lights with an electrician friend of mine. The power use is low, a good thing, there life span is long, another good thing, but they put out a ton of heat, not a good thing. They put out so much heat that you can't have them above seating areas as they would make you sweaty. I'm sure that as the technology is improved they will be able to deal with the heat issue but until then I am sticking to the cfls.

[Alisa]

I've tried a fair number of CFLs over the years and so far my favorite is the Ott brand. It's a little more than the others but it feels the closest to daylight to me. Lowe's has a brand called Bright Effects that's less but also quite nice. Probably the worst I've had is Ikea. Cheap but they don't last, the light is weak, and I don't like the color. Even though the mercury in them is a very small amount, I would like to avoid disposing of them for as long as possible and if I need more to get the same lumens, that's also a bit less green.

I try to be green but one thing I didn't realize when I bought my house, though, was that many of the fixtures were halogen. It never occurred to me to check. I could clearly see that one was but there was a fan and several ceiling fixtures that surprised me. It's a beautiful light and I've seen some arguments that it's fairly efficient but I've never gotten a full answer on that. They're closed fixtures so I guess I couldn't use CFLs there anyway. I may swap them out when LED bulbs become less prohibitively priced.

[pdurrant]

In general, Halogens are more efficient than ordinary incandescents. But not by much (perhaps 30%) if you want comparable lifetimes. And that doesn't take into account transformer losses.

Originally Posted by Alisa

I try to be green but one thing I didn't realize when I bought my house, though, was that many of the fixtures were halogen. It never occurred to me to check. I could clearly see that one was but there was a fan and several ceiling fixtures that surprised me.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

In general, Halogens are more efficient than ordinary incandescents. But not by much (perhaps 30%) if you want comparable lifetimes. And that doesn't take into account transformer losses.

And in this case, those transformer losses are what's key. Halogens are much hotter than I-bulbs... they waste a LOT of heat compared to the light they put out. I only use halogens in dimmer fixtures, which I generally run at low settings almost exclusively, to avoid cooking the bulbs, the fixtures, and the surrounding wall.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I recently ran across an article about a college that replaced a few hundred of its ceiling-mounted fluorescents with LED lights... at $75 a bulb, versus $2.50 for a standard tube fluorescent. Me, I don't know how they managed it, especially in this economic climate. But they did.

I'm eyeing LED bulbs too, but so far, I don't have the money to replace the lights in my house with them. Hopefully they'll come down in price soon, and we'll see (!) a lot more LED lights about.

With 2 kids in college, I can tell you how they did it. Tuition is through the roof and they raise it substantially every year, more than the COLA. The cost per credit hour at GMU, where my kids are students, is double that of the state colleges in Florida where we used to live. I would like to know that they were spending my hard earned dollars (okay, my husband's hard earned dollars) more prudently than $75 per lightbulb. But, I have no faith that they are.